[Sci-all-l] "leap year" - Word of the Day from the OED

[Flora Grabowska]

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  leap year

SECOND EDITION 1989 

[Late ME., f. LEAP n.1; prob. of much older 
formation, as the ON. hlaup-ár is presumably, 
like other terms of the Roman calendar, imitated 
from Eng.
   The name may refer to the fact that in the 
bissextile year any fixed festival after Feb. 
falls on the next week-day but one to that on 
which it fell in the preceding year, not on the 
next week-day as usual. Cf. med.L. saltus lunæ 
(OE. mónan hl˜p), the omission of a day in the 
reckoning of the lunar month, made every nineteen 
years to bring the calendar into accord with the 
astronomical phenomena.]

     A year having one day (now Feb. 29) more than 
the common year; a bissextile year.  to make leap 
year of: (fig.) to pass over.
1387 
<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-t2.html#trevisa>TREVISA 
Higden (Rolls) IV. 199  at tyme Iulius amended  e 
kalender, and fonde  e cause of the lepe  ere [L. 
rationem bisexti invenit]. 1481 
<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-c.html#caxton>CAXTON 
Myrr. II. xxxi. 127 Bysexte or lepe yere, whiche 
in iiij yere falleth ones. 1562 
<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-h2.html#j-heywood>J. 
HEYWOOD Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 207 The next leape 
yere after wedding was first made. 1606 
<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-b2.html#w-birnie>W. 
BIRNIE Kirk-Buriall (1833) 38 In civil entries to 
heritage, if it be for the better, men can make 
leap-yeare of their father and seeke farther 
uppe. 1704 
<http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-h2.html#hearne>HEARNE 
Duct. Hist. (1714) I. 3 That Year was called the 
Bissextile; and by us Leap-Year because one day 
of the Week is leaped over in the Observation of 
the Festivals. 1834 Nat. Philos., Astron. i. 44/1 
(U.K.S.) The years 1600, 2000, 2400, would be 
leap years.

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